1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention generally pertains to a system and method for sealing doors and more specifically to an inflatable or fluid-filled seal for a door.
2. Description of Related Art
So-called horizontally sliding doors (which actually may slide or roll) usually include one or more door panels that are suspended by carriages that travel along an overhead track. To open and close the door, the carriages move the door panels in a generally horizontal direction in front of the doorway. The movement of the panels can be powered or manually operated. Depending on the width of the doorway and the space along either side of it, a sliding door can assume a variety of configurations.
For a relatively narrow doorway with adequate space alongside to receive an opening door panel, a single panel may be sufficient to cover the doorway. Wider doorways with limited side space may require a bi-parting sliding door. Bi-parting doors include at least two panels, each moving in opposite directions from either side of the doorway and meeting at the center of the doorway upon closing. For even wider doorways or those with even less side space, multi-panel sliding doors can be used. Multi-panel doors have a series of door panels that overlay each other at one side of the doorway when the door is open. When the door closes, each panel slides out from behind the others to cover the span of the doorway. Applying such an arrangement to both sides of the doorway provides a bi-parting door with multiple panels on each side.
Sliding doors are often used to provide access to cold-storage lockers, which are rooms that provide large-scale refrigerated storage for the food industry. Doorways into such a room are often rather wide to allow forklift trucks to move large quantities of products in and out of the room. When closing off a refrigerated room, sliding doors are often preferred over other types of doors because sliding panels are generally easy to make thick with insulation to reduce the cooling load on the room. Refrigerated rooms, however, may have other types of doors such as swinging doors, roll-up doors, bi-fold doors, and overhead-storing doors.
Regardless of the type of door applied to a cold-storage locker, ineffectively sealing the edges around the door panels can create cooling losses and promote frost buildup in certain areas of the door. A particularly narrow seal, for instance, may be unable to span relatively wide air gaps and may provide insufficient thermal insulation. Air gaps can allow warm outside air to enter the refrigerated room where the warm air can condense and freeze on inner surfaces of the door and the room. Even without air gaps, seals with insufficient thermal insulation may conduct heat from exterior surfaces to the interior of the refrigerated room. This lowers the temperature of those exterior surfaces and promotes condensation and frost buildup.
Consequently, a need exists for a more effective system and method for the sealing of cold-storage lockers, wherein the seal can span rather wide air gaps and inhibit the buildup of frost.